Wild Foods - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 486

The Economic Value of Wild Foods
There is no comprehensive global estimate of the economic value of wild foods.
Quantitative analyses face two methodological difficulties. First, case studies using
different valuation methods and diverse scales are rarely comparable. Second, sales
may be missed by conventional accounting mechanisms when it is informal, occur-
ring at local markets, or underreported because it is illegal (Jaarsveld et al., 2005).
What is not in dispute is that trade in and use of wild foods provide an important
supplement to general incomes and are especially critical during economic hardship.
Households reliant on the mangroves of the Bhitarkanika Conservation Area in
India derive 14.5 percent of their total household income from resources extracted from
the mangroves. Goods sold in the market (forestry products and fish) are estimated to
have a market price of $107 per household per year (Hussain and Badola 2010). Among
the Tsimane' of Bolivia, only 3 percent of goods consumed in the household come from
the market; a significant proportion comes from freshwater and forest (Reyes-García
et al. 2008). In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, almost 90 percent of harvested
bushmeat and fish is sold rather than consumed (de Merode et al. 2003).
Bharucha and Pretty (2010) summarize estimates of direct use values for wild foods in
selected African countries. From the limited data available, it is clear that wild plants and
animals can provide between $170 to $900 worth of value to rural households in South
Africa and Tanzania. In Ghana, the bushmeat market is worth $275 million annually.
A central aspect of wild food use is its relative importance poorer households.
The conventional understanding is that poorer households depend more on
wild foods. However, detailed analyses do not show simple correlations between
wealth and use of harvested resources (de Merode et al. 2003; Allebone-Web
2009; Kamanga et al. 2009). A range of context-specific social and economic fac-
tors (e.g., price, individual or cultural preference, and wealth) are also relevant.
Consumption is also influenced by household wealth (Roe et al. 2002; de Merode
2003; McSweeny 2003).
Drivers of Change in Wild Food
Availability and Use
There are a number of important drivers for wild food availability and use. While some
clearly increase or decrease the use of wild foods, the impact of others is ambiguous
and context-dependent. The importance of understanding current trends for wild foods
is underscored by the recognition that food insecurity is a particular problem among
indigenous populations (Ford and Berrang-Ford 2009). For some of these communi-
ties, problems of species loss, hunger, and poverty overlap.